I’m a 20-something living in Boston. My day job is working as a software developer at a startup, but to find me in the evenings just follow the trail of thread and listen for the soft whir of the machine. The aforementioned sewing machine is a hand-me-down Elna from my mother. The sewing skillz are also hand-me-downs from my very talented mother. Read more.

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My Mad Men Challenge 3 outfit

Julia Bobbin is putting on this great Mad Men Challenge. This is the 3rd year she’s done it, though I didn’t get into Mad Men until this year so I guess I’m woefully behind the times.

Joan, of course, is my inspiration. Gotta love those pencil skirts!

I’ve been wanting to make a cherry red tie front blouse for months, and I finally found the perfect color of rayon challis online.

The top is the Fran Tie Shirt by Named Patterns. I love their patterns and I thought the kimono sleeves were also very sixties. I got a bit ahead of myself with this pattern, though. The directions are really not great, which I knew going in and decided to forge ahead anyway, and this is the first button down shirt I’ve made (well, I suppose there’s a Banksia in my past, but that guy had no cuffs in sight….). I might have been all fine had it not been for that slippery rayon challis! So I struggled quite a bit with this guy, and the end result is really not my best work. So yeah….no details shots, guys. I’ll still be wearing it just ah….please don’t look too closely at the button plackets!

The skirt is a revamped Charlotte Skirt from Christmases past. I made it out of some wool suiting many months ago when my skillz were not quite up to today’s standards. It had pinked seams, a hideously attached waistband, a very visible invisible zip, and most importantly it didn’t fit right. One of those sad, never worn and never blogged makes. I knew I wanted to pair the blouse with a pencil skirt, so I decided- why start from scratch? I whipped this guy off the reject pile and went for it. The first fix was to improve the fit. This particular pattern has never worked very well for me. It has sort of a kangaroo pouch effect in the front below the darts. So I googled around until I figured out a fix- just lengthen and widen the darts. That really seemed to do the trick. Who knew it would be so easy??

Then I just serged up those seems, reattached the waistband, and put a neater hem on it. All in all, much improved.

Thanks for putting on the challenge, Julia! It was a blast! Can’t wait to see what everyone else makes.